Lee Baucum
From:
McAllen, Texas (Extreme South) The Final Frontier
|
Posted 12 Nov 2012 2:18 pm |
|
After reading Bo's story --> Click Here I thought I would tell my story.
Here in extreme South Texas is a little community called McCook. It was established around 1925 by Polish farmers.
Click Here
It's located at a crossroad. About all that is there is a gas station, post office, grocery store, a couple of grain elevators, and a small Catholic church and parish hall.
You can see a photo of the grocery store here --> Click Here
I love playing wedding receptions out there. The typical wedding is an early afternoon wedding. After the wedding, they go across the parking lot to the parish hall for a reception.
After the reception, everybody goes home, usually back out to the farm. At that time, the band can come in and set up on the bandstand and have a sound check. Then, the band members can all go home. It is about a 35 minute drive for me. It's perfectly safe to leave your gear set up there.
That evening, they have the dinner and dance. There is a group of guys that spend most of the night before and the day of the wedding slow-cooking the beef and the pinto beans. Of course, there is also plenty of home-made Polish sausage. They have an outdoor cook shack near the parish hall. A bunch of the ladies out there prepare all the side dishes. In addition to the bride's cake and the groom's cake, some of the ladies bake pies. There is no way to describe how good all the food is. And, yes, they always feed the band.
The parish hall has a great bandstand on one end. The kitchen is on the other end. Plenty of room for tables and chairs along the sides and plenty of room for dancing in the middle.
At these receptions, you will find babies and small children on up to the eldest person that lives out there. By the end of the night, there will be children sleeping on blankets by the walls.
The men out there drink, but do not put up with drunks. If someone has too much to drink, several guys will get together and drive him home. They just won't put up with drunks.
The families that still live and farm out there are wonderful people. It's probably my favorite place to play.
_________________
Lee, from South Texas - Down On The Rio Grande
There are only two options as I see it.
Either I'm right, or there is a sinister conspiracy to conceal the fact that I'm right.
Williams Keyless S-10, BMI S-10, Evans FET-500LV, Fender Steel King, 2 Roland Cube 80XL's,
Sarno FreeLoader, Goodrich Passive Volume Pedals, Vintage ACE Pack-A-Seat |
|
Lee Baucum
From:
McAllen, Texas (Extreme South) The Final Frontier
|
Posted 12 Nov 2012 2:47 pm
|
|
Our band played for a wedding reception in McCook just a few weeks ago. I had a nice visit with one of the older residents. He and I were reminiscing about how they used to have public dances at the parish hall on Saturday nights. In the late 60's and early 70's local country bands would go out there to play. Names I can remember were Tommy Williams and the Driftin' Cowboys, Curly Grant and the Westernaires, and the Newton Brothers. Norman Newton still plays fiddle and steel in bands in this area.
A real treat, in the 50's and 60's, was when Adolph Hofner came down to play. Click Here
Some of you older Texans will probably remember that name. Think Bob Wills music, sung in Czech. |
|
Les Anderson
From:
The Great White North
|
Posted 13 Nov 2012 1:36 pm
|
|
I am not sure if this will fit in with this thread or not; however, in Saskatchewan there is a little hamlet by the name of “Love”. This little hamlet is rather infamous because of its name and the little post office get thousands of Valentine cards envelopes every year to post stamp.
The other unique thing about this little town is weddings. The town of Love sees many young couples traveling to this little town from all over N. America to get married. Quit often, two or three couples will get married there on the same week end. To make a long story short, I have gigged at two wedding receptions/dances there. The town is very strict on the drinking and pot smoking rules during these events. People do it of course; however, if anyone gets carried away or cantankerous, they find themselves the local RCMP slammer almost immediately.
It’s a very unique little town and all of the streets are named with names like, “Cupid’s Lane, “Lover’s Lane”, “Passion Ave”, and so on. |
|
